unit 5 Flashcards
*The thinkers who lived before the time of Socrates are tagged as the first official philosophers. They lived during a time when writers explained the natural events through mythology
* They knew no rational answer about the existence of the world, they were the first ones to find these answers in a natural way
PRESOCRATICS
The ancient period in the history of Philosophy is known to be
cosmocentric
The Presocratics’ questions focused on the
universe or the Cosmos
- Thought that the basic element that composes everything is water.
THALES OF MILETUS
- An opposing element to water, fire, was thought to be the basic component
- For him, nothing can be made without heat.
o fire also symbolizes destruction, death, and impermanence. This led Heraclitus to think that everything is in a permanent state of flux, that everything is flowing and changing
o “You cannot step in the same river twice”
HERACLITUS
fire also symbolizes
destruction, death, and impermanence
- the first thinkers to conceive of atoms
- Atoms, which are invisible to the naked eye, are the basic components of all
- According to them, everything can be divided and reduced to these basic invisible elements.
LEUCIPPUS AND DEMOCRITUS
He believed in an element that produces those elements
ANAXIMANDER
ANAXIMANDER called this the apeiron which means the
“boundless” or “limitless”
- an astronomer
- requested a photo of the Earth in 1990 by the Voyager 1 spacecraft at a distance of 3.7 billion miles away.
CARL SAGAN
Earth could be seen as a mere
Pale Blue Dot
- a philosopher from the Medieval period, called God as the Summum Bonum or “the highest good”.
o In the study of Ethics, the Summum Bonum is seen as the end goal of life – that people go on with their lives in search of it.
ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
called God as the
Summum Bonum or “the
highest good”
the Summum Bonum is seen as the
end goal of life
- saw that a union with God is the object of life
- main point was on his advocate of many virtues that would purify one’s soul
in order to be worthy of a union with God
ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO
- states that an action is considered right and good if one can get a use or a
utility out of it
UTILITARIANISM
which is a view that examines the consequence of an action
Consequentialism
The father of modern Utilitarianism
Jeremy Bentham
- ancient Chinese philosopher
o In his work, the Analects, the wise teacher taught of one of the major ethical guidelines
that is revered until today: The Golden Rule - “What you do not want to be done to you,
don’t do unto others.”
CONFUCIUS
the major ethical guidelines
that is revered until today
The Golden Rule
meaning of golden rule
“What you do not want to be done to you, don’t do unto others.”
- the practice of non consumption of meat and/or products that come from animals like milk or eggs.
o Part of the discussion in environmental ethics is the questioning of the practice of human beings in the consumption of non-human animals
VEGETARIANISM
- argues strongly that it seems non-human animals are facing discrimination equitable to
sexism or racism among human beings
o in a 2008 documentary called Examined Life, he questioned the morality of a highly
capitalistic society.
PETER SINGER
- This approach rests on the intrinsic value of an action instead of the consequences: like, caring for the environment is right not because it would result to a better life for us, but because caring for the environment is the right thing to do by itself.
o Doing what is right does not stop when there are no benefits anymore, it doesn’t stop because it’s not stopping from being right by itself
DEONTOLOGICAL APPROACH
